


That Kind Of Couple

by meansgirl



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Cute, Domestic Bliss, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, Foreplay, Kissing, Kittens, M/M, Marriage, Pet Ownership - Freeform, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:55:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28097259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meansgirl/pseuds/meansgirl
Summary: For Saratonin, who requested: Established relationship. With cats. Something fluffy.When Greg brought the kittens home it was with a sheepish, nervous smile on his face and rainwater splattered up to his knees.“You… found these?” Mycroft asked, leaning over the sodden cardboard box to take in the frankly tragically scraggly animals within.“Someone dumped them,” said Greg mournfully. “In a ditch.”
Relationships: Mycroft Holmes/Greg Lestrade
Comments: 22
Kudos: 233





	That Kind Of Couple

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Saratonin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saratonin/gifts).



When Greg brought the kittens home it was with a sheepish, nervous smile on his face and rainwater splattered up to his knees. 

“You… found these?” Mycroft asked, leaning over the sodden cardboard box to take in the frankly tragically scraggly animals within. 

“Someone dumped them,” said Greg mournfully. “In a _ditch.”_

Mycroft drew a slow breath in through his nose, keeping a handle on his reaction, which was to demand of his husband an explanation - a _plan_ for what to do with these two… half-drowned _creatures._ “And… you wish to…?” 

“Well.” Beside Mycroft, Greg shifted from foot to foot. “I mean. If you don’t like cats, which— we never talked about it. Personally, I’m a cat _and_ dog person. I don’t _need_ to have pets, but. Well, I always thought I might someday. If you don’t feel the same, that’s _fine—”_

Mycroft realized he was behaving rather coldly. He shook himself and placed a hand in the center of Greg’s back. “I’m sorry,” he said gently. “I didn’t mean to imply that I would see them tossed back onto the street.”

“Well, I could take them to a shelter in the morning.”

Mycroft winced and glanced back into the box, then at Greg’s face as he, too, stared down at the kittens, utterly besotted. 

_Damn._

“It’s just that the only cat with whom I have ever spent any amount of time belonged to my Great Aunt Mildred, and it was… not a pleasant experience.” 

Greg looked up at him. “Oh,” he said. “Are you afraid of them? They’re only kittens. Still babies. They can scratch, and it does hurt, but their little claws are so tiny, and their little teeth—” 

“You very much want to keep them,” Mycroft said, knowing it to be the truth. They both knew there was nothing he would deny Greg. Not when it was something he genuinely wanted. Or even only mentioned in passing. Or merely glanced at it while they were out together on any given weekend. 

“Well.” Greg pushed his wet hair off his forehead. “Kind of, yeah.”

Mycroft sighed, then shrugged, helpless to argue against it. “It isn’t as if we can’t afford them.”

Greg grinned up at him. “I’d kiss you, but I’m soaking.”

“Kiss me anyway,” Mycroft said, and Greg did. It was unseemly, how he could manage to send Mycroft’s heart pounding even while smelling vaguely like mildew from carrying around the box, and dripping rainwater all over Mycroft’s shoes and the handmade rug. 

You didn’t tell a man who could kiss like that that he couldn’t keep his kittens. 

Then he said, “Okay. First thing - we need to get the fleas off them.”

This brought Mycroft up short. _“Fleas?”_

*

Mycroft helped as much as he could, but he was embarrassed to find that he was an awkward and uncertain pet owner. 

“It’s alright,” Greg soothed, once the kittens had been bathed and their stringy wet fur searched through for fleas. There had been many, and quite a lot of dirt and even some blood. Greg had been distraught over it, which had in turn upset Mycroft to a degree that he found unsettling and also inconvenient, as he held the little ginger kitten in hands that were suddenly rather shaky.

“They’re… very small.” 

“Well,” said Greg, “PC Cormoran knows cats pretty well and says they look to be maybe two months old, so they’re alright to eat the kitten food I bought them on the way home. We won’t need to bottle feed them. They’ll get big pretty fast according to Google.” 

Greg carried the towel-wrapped bundles into the lounge. “C’mon, we’ll let them snooze while we watch the news and make fun of it.” 

Mycroft found himself surprised to be resuming their usual evening rituals so soon after the upset of the kittens, but he followed Greg anyway and let himself be arranged on the sofa as he always was, with Greg’s head on his shoulder.

“Here,” Greg said, and handed Mycroft the little grey tabby. “Let’s switch so they each get used to both of us. Hold this little fella. All you have to do is pet him and he’ll probably pop right off to sleep on you.”

Mycroft fumbled as they swapped the kittens between their hands, but did as told and held the grey cat. Its green eyes blinked blearily up at him. “Are they sick, do you think?”

“Vet tomorrow,” Greg said with a jaw-cracking yawn. He shifted, curling more completely into Mycroft’s side. “Probably need some medication for the eye gunk. Definitely need their jabs soon.”

“Right.” Mycroft stroked a tentative finger over the kitten’s forehead. Its eyes closed and it began a low, rumbling purr against Mycroft’s hand. At the same time, Greg’s warm hand slipped as it usually did just under the hem of Mycroft’s jumper, resting comfortably against his belly as the new droned on in the background.

 _Oh,_ Mycroft thought. _Well, that’s rather nice._

*

“Do you not like the kittens?”

Mycroft jerked up in surprise, straightening from a hunch over the desk in his study. “Sorry, what?”

“It’s just you haven’t come up with any names, and you seem… a little off.”

Mycroft chewed at the inside of his cheek, unsure how he should answer. What would be the least offensive thing to say. “It’s… mainly, it’s that I’ve never kept an animal before. And you seem very comfortable and capable. And so… I’m not certain what there is for me to do.”

Greg’s lips quirked into the soft, fond smile that meant he found Mycroft eccentric but charming anyway, and he settled into the armchair across from the desk. “Well, for starters, I think the grey one should be named Henry. What do you think?”

Mycroft tried, and failed, to suppress his reaction. 

“Alright,” Greg said with a laugh. “Not Henry, then.”

“Name of an ex,” Mycroft muttered, and stared down at his desk blotter. When he glanced up again, Greg was now outright grinning. “What?”

“You’re cute,” he said. “Alright, not Henry. Terrence?”

“Must it be a name that would befit an old Eton classmate?” Mycroft winced. “Don’t people name their pets silly things, like Peppermint and Giggles?”

“Do you want to name the kittens Peppermint and Giggles?”

 _“No,_ but—” 

“So, give me some names.”

In the end the kittens interrupted with a crash from the lounge. They of course had gotten into some mischief involving knocking over a vase. Mycroft and Greg arrived on the scene in time to witness the little grey male scaling the curtains and flinging himself off them, while the orange female looked on with the distinct look of someone taking notes. Greg scooped the grey kitten off the sideboard where he landed, sending an antique clock careening to the floor, and turned wide-eyed to Mycroft. 

“He bloody _flew,_ did you see that?” He looked down at the kitten with a mix of fear and admiration. “You little scamp.”

That evening over dinner the names Peter Pan and Wendy were chosen on the merits of being just silly enough to seem correct to Mycroft, and just normal enough for Greg to be able to take them seriously.

*

Mycroft knew Greg would be working late when he arrived home from a two-week trip to a place the name of which would be redacted on any reports, with people who may or may not exist in any official capacity, to discuss issues that distressed even Mycroft - somewhat, anyway. 

Greg had texted just before Mycroft boarded the plane a few hours ago. 

_Just got called out. It’ll be a long night. Covered a plate for you in the fridge, please eat it and have a glass of the wine I’ve left by the sink. I had grand plans. Wining, dining, massaging. If you could, make sure the kittens haven’t upended the water bowl. Love you, can’t wait to see you._

Mycroft glanced at the wine and felt a distinct sort of wooziness creep through his gut at the thought of it. The after-effects of a bout of food poisoning halfway through his trip had not quite abated, so he would sadly be disappointing Greg on that count. The food, though. That, he needed desperately. 

Sure enough, Greg had cooked. Of the two of them, he was the one who was gifted in the kitchen. While Mycroft set the microwave, the usual teasing came to mind. _Too many posh restaurants. All those boarding school dining halls. You’re practically helpless, you poor, privileged thing._ Mycroft would roll his eyes and Greg would press a kiss to his cheek and say, _Good thing I’m such a sucker for men who can barely boil water without an electric kettle._

Mycroft smiled to himself and took his plate to the lounge so he could eat while he scanned the news networks for anything particularly egregious. 

He was just scraping the last of the hollandaise sauce off the plate with the edge of his fork when he heard the meows, which were soon followed by an insistent scratch and shuffle - the sound of tiny paws attacking the very bottom of the guest room door. 

“Coming, coming,” Mycroft told them on a yawn.

If Greg were here, he’d bring the kittens out to play, and Mycroft was starting to worry that he was the less favored parent, so he would, as well - even though the thought of wrangling them on his own made him mildly queasy with nerves. Perhaps that was just the food poisoning, still. 

They had begun confining the kittens to the guest suite, just when they were to be left home alone, after the incident with the curtains. Mycroft had been convinced that one of the kittens would meet a terrible end trying to be a little daredevil, and Greg had agreed, saying that even if the kittens survived, the house might not. The master suite had been the first location attempted as the kittens’ home base, but one night of two small balls of furry energy _quite literally_ bouncing off the walls had been plenty of proof that they would need their own space at night. 

“Just until they’re big enough not to get stuck somewhere or get hurt,” Greg said. “Then they can have the run of the place. And when they aren’t so full of energy, maybe they’ll curl up with us.” 

Mycroft had been vaguely appalled at the idea of animals in the bed, but had let it go in the moment, not wanting to crush Greg’s hopes just yet. 

Now, he opened the guest room door and both cats darted out, giving him a split second to note that they’d grown a bit since he left for his trip. He found it fascinating how quickly they added mass to their gangly little frames, especially once antibiotics had cleared the minor infection they had both had when they arrived. Two months (plus two weeks) on, and they were sleek little mischief machines, not quite fully grown, not quite brand new. 

Mycroft checked that the water bowl had gone unspilt, and gathered up the dirtied plates from the dinner Greg had fed them before rushing out the door. 

He found both cats feigning starvation in the kitchen. 

“You have already eaten,” he told them. 

Wendy’s needle claws pricked at his trouser leg. 

“No, madam, I won’t be coerced.” He loaded the plates into the dishwasher and checked the kitchen water bowl. “If you would be interested in a very small treat, you might try _not_ destroying a pair of bespoke suit trousers in order to win me over to your side.” 

Mycroft scooped her off the ground, giving her body a careful tug to dislodge her claws. She was terribly charming with her bright green eyes and the slightly wild bits of fur at the very points of her ears. While Mycroft carried her to the cabinet where his favorite biscuits, Greg’s favorite chewy candy, and the kitten treats lived, Peter wove around his ankles. 

“I’m going to trip over you one day,” Mycroft muttered. “I’m going to trip, hit my head, and _die,_ and you will eat my corpse without the slightest hesitation. I know it, and you know it, and Greg - though he insists that you do love me - also knows it.”

Of course, he followed this up by stooping to lay two treats in front of Peter before giving two to Wendy, who licked his fingers clean of every last speck of whatever fishy oil remained on them. And of course, he found himself smiling at her like a gormless fool as usual. 

“Alright,” he sighed. “We can watch the news. I could use company while I witness such high-flying levels of stupidity. Probably we should unpack and go to bed, but… I’m tired, you’re terrifying, and I don’t want to see what mischief you might cause in the laundry room.” 

He headed back to the lounge, Wendy tucked in the crook of his arm, and Peter - who was somewhat averse to being carried - trotted after. 

*

“Mycroft.”

There came the sound of a mobile phone’s camera shutter clicking. 

“Christ, that’s precious. Hey, Mycroft, you wanna move to the bed? Open your eyes, love, come on…”

Mycroft groaned. “No,” he said, as succinctly as he could through a haze of sleep and a travel-related headache. “I can’t move.”

“You can,” Greg murmured, close to his ear now. “Did you know you have a cat wrapped round your neck?”

Mycroft breathed in deeply and forced himself into a greater level of awareness. Sure enough, he was nearly uncomfortably hot around the neck and head. “She… was asleep on the cushion beside me.”

“She’s down by your feet. _He_ is using your left ear as a pillow.”

Mycroft forced his eyes open, but of course couldn’t see the cat tucked up under his jaw. “Peter Pan has _deigned_ to touch me? My god, what strange smell did I pick up at that airport to bring this on?”

Greg chuckled and Mycroft turned his head so he could see it, and the sparkle in his eyes. “Told you that cat loves you.”

“Mm.” Mycroft cleared his throat. “That’s very nice. Can you… perhaps remove him so that I don’t receive a claw to the face when I sit up?’

Greg shook his head “It was only one time.” But he did gently extract the limply sleeping kitten from his throat. 

“I bled on a letter from the American Vice President.”

“Well, he’s an arsehole anyway.”

Mycroft laughed as he pushed himself up to sit, groaning as his back protested the couch sleeping. “Sorry,” he managed, rubbing sleep from his eyes. “Is it very late? Are you alright? Was the case—” 

“Case is keeping til a reasonable hour of the morning,” Greg said gently, one hand holding a cat and the other stroking sweetly over Mycroft’s hair. “It’s after three, and I’m fine. You could have gone to bed, silly man, instead of waiting up on the sofa. Your spine’s going to hate you tomorrow.”

“While I appreciate that you think I am so functional after all-day travel that I could make the decision to wait up or not, I’m afraid that in fact it was rather involuntary. I simply meant to watch an hour of news and then go to bed. The last few days must have caught up with me.”

“Well, barely sleeping after a hellish bout of food poisoning will do that to a person.”

Mycroft tried not to sound petulant. “I wanted to be sure I could come home on time.”

“Anthea texted and said you were being a bit of a dick.”

“Anthea is fired.”

Greg just laughed and leaned forward, pressing a kiss to Mycroft’s cheek. “I love you. Come to bed, please?”

Mycroft nodded, carefully moving his feet away from where Wendy slept. “Should we leave her?”

“Absolutely not,” Greg murmured. “She’ll destroy the place while we sleep.I’ll take these two to the guest room. You head up.” 

Mycroft didn’t head up, deciding instead to hover, half-awake, by the guest room door, so that he could walk upstairs with Greg’s arm around his waist. 

*

“I— I can’t.”

Greg paused, one hand poised over the waistband of Mycroft’s trousers, his mouth open against the skin just to the right of his navel. “What? Can’t what?”

Mycroft’s eyes flicked to the armchair in the corner, where the kittens curled together, asleep. “I can’t, not while the kittens are in here.”

Greg pushed up to kneel between Mycroft’s bent knees. “You’re serious?”

“It’s _strange.”_

“They’re _asleep.”_ Greg ran a hand over his face. “And they are _cats.”_

Mycroft felt himself blushing, hot stripes across the tops of his cheeks that were probably bright red. “Well,” he spluttered. “Well, you’re the one who keeps speaking for them in those voices and referring to me as their _father._ Any psychological side effects I am now experiencing are, frankly, _your_ doing.”

“You—” Greg’s teeth sunk into his bottom lip and he looked away, one hand moving to shield his face. “Um—”

“Do not _laugh.”_

Greg snorted. “It’s just really precious, Mycroft, you can’t expect me to—” 

“To have mercy and just— can we move this to the other room?”

Greg wiped away his grin and leaned down, held up on his elbows to hover close, his curved mouth a breath from Mycroft’s. “Yes, love, we can.” He kissed him, sweetly teasing. “But let’s hurry up because it’s only a matter of time before they wake up and start banging at the guest room door.”

Mycroft huffed and shoved at his chest. “Well, get off me and I can hurry up.”

“Get the lube out of the drawer, too.”

“Yes, dear,” Mycroft muttered. 

“Sorry, what?” Greg fell forward again, fingers going instantly to the most sensitive places under Mycroft’s ribs. “What was that?”

“Nothing!” Mycroft twisted. “Stop, or I swear I will give you a knee to the jaw and then I absolutely will _not_ let you—”

“Let me what?” Greg demanded, mouth hot against Mycroft’s throat even as he tickled him even more mercilessly. “Let me fuck your brains out? Let me finger you til you _beg_ me for it? Let me give you what we both know you—” 

Mycroft gave up on trying to twist out from under him and chose instead to slap a hand over Greg’s wicked mouth. “Shut. Up.” 

Greg licked his palm, eyes sparkling with humor. 

“Just—” Mycroft swallowed his own laugh. “Let’s go. Go, go, I can’t believe I married someone this ridiculous.” 

“You love it,” Greg whispered, and shoved away, moving gracefully up from the bed. 

Mycroft narrowed his eyes, annoyed and turned on in equal measure by his husband’s easy athleticism, which had only gotten more obnoxious since they’d taken up cycling. 

“Come on,” Greg prompted, stripping his shirt over his head. “Don’t be so grumpy, darling. Or at least, let me give you a reason not to be.”

He moved backward toward the door, eyebrows raised in challenge as he unzipped his jeans. He turned his back to Mycroft before stripping them and his underwear down to the ground at once. He spared Mycroft one last glance over his shoulder before leaving down the hall. 

Mycroft took a breath, centering himself, and reached for the bedside drawer, eyes on the still-sleeping cats. If he did this too noisily they would assumed that any rustle in the nightstand was an invitation to come investigate. He needed to move carefully. 

He was aware of how ridiculous this was, but as his hand closed around the familiar tube, Mycroft pushed it aside. 

His attention was needed elsewhere - namely, with the gloriously naked man waiting for him in the guest room. 

*

The photo appeared on Mycroft’s desk when the kittens were around six months old, the day before they were scheduled to go in for matching spay and neuter surgery. 

The frame was very formal, clearly chosen to match other items in the study, but the photo within it was decidedly not. 

Mycroft only vaguely remembered being woken from a heavy sleep on the sofa in the lounge. It hadn’t been the first or last time it happened, but it had been the first time the kittens got quite so close to Mycroft without Greg around. In the photo, Mycroft stretched along the length of the sofa, arms crossed over his middle. Peter’s body looked more like a fur scarf, draped over his neck with two pointed ears just barely visible between Mycroft’s head and the back of the sofa. And Wendy lay along the inside of his calf, her tiny face perched atop his knee, eyes closed in sleep. 

If Mycroft ignored his own fly-away hair and slack sleeping face, it was a very sweet picture. 

“You are very sweet,” he said. 

Greg, lurking in the hall, sighed. “I can’t sneak _anywhere_ with you around.”

“Except, apparently, when I am sleeping.”

Greg eased into the room. “I know you’re nervous about their surgery. Thought you might like that now, instead of at Christmas when I planned to give it to you.” 

“I’m not nervous,” Mycroft insisted, but his hands turned the frame over and then back again, fidgeting. “I’m fine.” 

“It’s alright if you are, you know.” Greg leaned in, hands against the desk. “We’ve become _that_ kind of couple, and I’m alright with it.” 

“And what kind of couple is that?”

“The kind with pets for children, of course.” Greg shifted forward, stealing a quick, chaste kiss. “It’s _very_ adorable of us. We’re so sweetly stereotypical. Other couples _wish_ they were this delightful. We’re one silly hat away for dressing them up at Halloween.” 

“Stop,” Mycroft pleaded, trying to hold back his laugh. “We’re not that bad.”

“John disagrees. You should hear the teasing I get.” 

“John and my brother live to annoy us both.” Mycroft let Greg take the frame away from his and set it back on the corner of the desk. He used his freed hands to direct Greg by the jaw into another kiss, deeper this time. 

“When’s your conference call?”

Mycroft checked the clock. “Twenty minutes.” 

“Care for some distraction?”

“Are the—” 

“They’re eating.” Greg moved away to shut the door of the study. “I give us maybe fifteen before one or both starts scratching at the door.”

“What sort of distraction are you proposing.” 

Greg grinned wickedly. “Get comfortable in your chair,” he murmured. “And close your eyes.”

*

They did _not_ send out Christmas cards with a photograph of their cats wearing santa hats, as John Watson suggested. 

But that year marked the first of many where the bulk of the gifts given to them by family and friends, were in some way cat themed. 

Greg’s desk at work now contained a box of cat-shaped paperclips. Mycroft now owned designer socks with cat paw prints in a subtle polka-dot. A pair of custom made porcelain cats joined other knick knacks on the mantle. Molly Hooper had them in the secret Santa for the party at 221B, and gave them an ingenious cat toy that was, in essence, whack-a-mole with feathers. 

“It’ll keep them happy while you’re at work,” she said, grinning widely over her glass of champagne. “My Toby adores it.” 

Mycroft had met Ms. Hooper on many occasions over the years, but it was that moment, when she looked so incredibly fond of a cat named Toby, and eager to read him in on a secret hack into cat happiness, that he felt oddly kindred with her. 

He heard Greg tell John he ought to bring Rosie over, let the cats get used to her so they’d be good with kids, which raised some mild measure of alarm in the back of Mycroft’s mind. But soon he was drawn into conversation with Molly again, and he filed it away for later. 

*

He blurted the question while slightly tipsy on the walk from the car to their front door later that night 

“Darling, you don’t want _children,_ do you?”

Greg smirked at him as he unlocked the door. “What the hell are you talking about?

“You said—” Mycroft allowed himself to be ushered inside. “You told John that they need to be used to children. Peter and Wendy, I mean.” 

Greg rolled his eyes affectionately before turning to punch his code into the security system. “Yeah, sweetheart, so that if we babysit she won’t yank on their tails and get scratched or something.”

_“Babysit.”_

“Well, you never know.” Greg relieved Mycroft of his coat and gloves. “What on earth would make you think I want children? I think that ship has sailed, don’t you? Neither of us is all that young anymore.”

“We aren’t so old.” 

“Do _you_ want children?”

Mycroft wrinkled his nose. “No.” 

“Well, there you go.” Greg hustled him toward the stairs, where two pairs of luminous eyes watched their progress through the foyer. 

“But,” Mycroft said, pausing to scoop Wendy up along the way. “But if _you_ wanted them. Well. If you wanted just _one—”_

“That’s very sweet of you,” Greg said, laughing. “But no, thank you. You let me keep the cats. Maybe we’ll get a dog one day. That’s plenty, love.” 

“Alright,” Mycroft sighed. 

Greg pressed a kiss to the back of his neck and guided him to the bedroom. “Alright drunky,” he said fondly. “Let’s get you into bed.”

It wasn’t until Greg was drawing back the blankets that something he’d said registered in Mycroft’s sleepy, wine-addled mind. 

“Did you say _a dog?”_

Greg laughed and pressed one last kiss to his cheek. “Go to _sleep.”_

Mycroft was vaguely aware of paws kneading at his midsection as he obeyed, letting his eyes fall shut. 

*

They adopted Marmite - named by the shelter - the following year. After that, they received both cat _and_ springer spaniel themed gifts at the holidays, and the five of them were very happy together. 

**The end.**

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on twitter @meansgirlwrites


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